Health News

Older sisters could aid prevention efforts aimed at reducing risky sexual behaviors among teen girls

Date: Oct-17-2013
Adolescence can be an impressionable time for girls as they begin forming ideas about dating and sexuality. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that sisters often take on key roles of confidants, sources of support and mentors during conversations about romantic relationships. Sisters may be helpful in health education efforts to promote safe-sex practices and healthy romantic relationships...

New type of antibacterial agent offers new approach to bacterial infection, other diseases

Date: Oct-17-2013
Researchers at Oregon State University and other institutions have announced the successful use of a new type of antibacterial agent called a PPMO, which appears to function as well or better than an antibiotic, but may be more precise and also solve problems with antibiotic resistance. In animal studies, one form of PPMO showed significant control of two strains of Acinetobacter, a group of bacteria of global concern that has caused significant mortality among military personnel serving in Middle East combat...

Identifying new proteins crucial for hearing improves understanding of inherited hearing loss

Date: Oct-17-2013
A team of researchers led by Dr. Michel Cayouette at the IRCM made an important discovery, published online by the scientific journal Developmental Cell, that could better explain some inherited forms of hearing loss in humans. The Montréal scientists identified a group of proteins crucial for shaping the cellular organ responsible for detecting sounds. For a human to hear, sound-induced vibrations in the inner ear must first be transformed into electrical impulses before they can be relayed to the brain...

ED injury surveillance data on "glassing" assaults

Date: Oct-17-2013
Contrary to public perception, "glassing" incidents, particularly at licensed venues, constitute a relatively small proportion of all alcohol-related violence. This Early View paper is written by paramedic student Anthony Laing, Dr Marguerite Sendall who is a lecturer in health promotion and qualitative research at the Queensland University of Technology, and emergency paediatrician Dr Ruth Barker from the Mater Children's Hospital in Brisbane and director of the Queensland Injury Surveillance Unit...

Expert panel reports on the health effects of conducted energy weapons

Date: Oct-17-2013
A new expert panel report, entitled The Health Effects of Conducted Energy Weapons, was released today by the Council of Canadian Academies in collaboration with the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. The assessment was conducted by a 14-member panel of distinguished multidisciplinary experts and chaired by the Honourable Justice Stephen T. Goudge from the Court of Appeal for Ontario. The Expert Panel was asked to consider the state of knowledge about the medical and physiological impacts of conducted energy weapons (CEWs)...

Older adults feel older after brief memory test

Date: Oct-17-2013
You're only as old as you feel, or so the saying goes. Now, research suggests that a simple memory test can have a noticeable impact on just how old some older adults feel, aging them about five years in the span of five minutes. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Previous work shows that how old one feels - one's subjective age - predicts significant health outcomes, even better than one's chronological age predicts these outcomes," says senior researcher Lisa Geraci of Texas A&M University...

Ototoxic drug-induced hearing loss prevented by sound preconditioning in mice

Date: Oct-17-2013
The death of sensory hair cells in the ear results in irreversible hearing loss. Several classes of drugs, including aminoglycoside antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs are known to kill hair cells; however, in many cases the benefit of using the drug outweighs the potential for hearing loss. Previous research has shown that a class of proteins induced in response to cell stress, the heat shock proteins (HSPs), can protect against sensory hair cell death in response to ototoxic drugs...

Genetic medicine to benefit from Sino-British health partnership

Date: Oct-17-2013
The Manchester Academic Health Science Centre (MAHSC) has formed a partnership with the Peking University Health Sciences Centre to establish an international centre of excellence in genetic medicine. The new Peking-Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, announced by British Chancellor George Osborne in Beijing today (Monday), will comprise three separate but interdependent research facilities - the International Centre for Rare Diseases, the Centre for Cancer Genetics, and the Joint Clinical Trials Facility...

Anti-cancer virus activated by drug

Date: Oct-17-2013
Parvoviruses cause no harm in humans, but they can attack and kill cancer cells. Since 1992, scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have been studying these viruses with the aim of developing a viral therapy to treat glioblastomas, a type of aggressively growing brain cancer. A clinical trial has been conducted since 2011 at the Heidelberg University Neurosurgery Hospital to test the safety of treating cancer patients with the parvovirus H-1. "We obtained impressive results in preclinical trials with parvovirus H-1 in brain tumors," says Dr...

Growing a miniature pancreas - a step towards the production of cells for diabetes therapy

Date: Oct-17-2013
An international team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen have successfully developed an innovative 3D method to grow a miniature pancreas from progenitor cells. The future goal is to use this model to help in the fight against diabetes. The research results has just been published in the scientific journal Development. Professor Anne Grapin-Botton and her team at the Danish Stem Cell Centre have developed a three-dimensional culture method which enables the efficient expansion of pancreatic cells...